BPhO Round 2 (Training Camp Selection)

• Competition date: Monday 5^th February 2024.
• Marked: scanned scripts uploaded by Friday 9^th February 2024, and marked by the BPhO.
• Length: 3 hours.
• Cost: Free: by invitation only. The Top Gold and selected Gold candidates from Round 1.
• Year Group: Year 13 and below.
• Prizes: Certificates (and, if possible, book prizes).
• The competition is sat within school.
• These are significantly harder questions and preparation is required of students (see below). It is less the content and more the style of the questions.

Award allocation

Certificates are awarded to the top students in approximately the following numbers:

• 33 % Gold
• 33 % Silver
• 33 % Bronze

Students achieving a certificate of any colour in the BPhO are very able physicists. We would encourage schools to present these certificates in a manner that recognises the significant achievement of successful students at a national level.

Eligibility

Students will be invited to take part in this competition paper only if they are eligible for the UK team.
For this, students are required to:

1. Attend a secondary school, sixth form or FE college within the UK,
   AND
   
2. Be a UK citizen OR have had the majority of their education within the UK - specifically this means that they should have been educated in the UK since the start of Year 9.
   If you teach a student who is not a UK citizen but would like to enquire about their eligibility, contact the BPhO.

[The increased number of A level students from overseas studying in the UK is welcome and it is pleasing to see their success in Round 1, but that does not make them eligible to take Round 2.]

Preparation

Three documents provide information about preparation topics to cover.

There are between three and five questions on the paper.

1. They are on topics based on an A level syllabus or equivalent, but coverage of some topics is extended and, detailed in the syllabus document Round 2 extended topics BPhO Syllabus Round 2 (Dec 2019).
2. The booklet, Upgrade Your Physics, which you can download here Upgrade Your Physics is extremely useful on extension topics. Solutions to the questions are not available.
3. Which sections should you look at for Round 2? A Guide is given in Upgrade Your Physics Topics for Round 2.

Past papers

Past papers can be found here.

Qualification for Round 3: Team selection

The results of BPhO Round 1 and BPhO Round 2 are analysed and 14 students are selected to proceed to Round 3 and the Oxford Training Camp.

A presentation ceremony takes place for the top 14 students who are selected for the Oxford Training Camp at The Royal Society in April.